The subject matter disclosed herein generally relates to desalination systems, and more particularly, to a system for recovering hardness minerals.
There are several regions in the United States (e.g., the southwestern United States including New Mexico, Southern California, and parts of Texas) and throughout the world that experience shortages in potable water supplies due, in part, to the arid climate of these geographic locales. As water supplies are limited, innovative technologies and alternative water supplies for both drinking water and agriculture may be utilized. One method for obtaining an alternative source of potable water uses desalination systems to produce the potable water.
The desalination process may involve the removal of salts from seawater, agricultural run-off water, and/or brackish ground water brines to produce potable water. Membrane-based desalination may use an assortment of filtration methods, such as nanofiltration and reverse osmosis, to separate the raw brine stream into a desalinated water stream and a tailing stream. The tailing streams may contain various salts and other materials left over after the desalination process. Included in these tailing streams may be valuable salts and minerals which may be extracted using membrane-based and/or evaporative techniques.